The ecosystem of application processors has evolved with profound changes since the beginning of 2013, with entry-level to mid-range products becoming mainstream and vendor ranking in the industry fluctuating widely, according to Digitimes Research.

Nvidia, which performed rather strongly in 2012, is expected to see its market share decline significantly in 2013, while Samsung Electronics' efforts to promote its own applications processors will affect sales of other chipset suppliers.

While MediaTek will continue to expand its market share by the release of new processors for tablets and smartphones in the second half of 2013, LG Electronics is also expected to unveil chips based on its own architecture developed in-house.

Huawei has not been really successful in the promotion of its own processors so far, but the planned launch of high-end models in the second half of 2013 is worth observing. Meanwhile, Intel and AMD have been focusing on development of SoC solutions based on x86 architecture, exerting increasing pressure on the ARM camp.

As x86-based products are likely to raise their presence in the application processor segment in the second half of 2013, ARM is expected to heat up its competition with Qualcomm's Krait platform in the high-end segment utilizing its big.LITTLE architecture, while using its multi-core Cortex-A7 CPUs to compete in the US$50-100 mainstream segment, Digitimes Research said.

This article is an excerpt from a Chinese-language Digitimes Research report. Click here if you are interested in receiving more information about the content and price of a translated version of the full report.